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Bisexuality [SBR]

  
 
grant
17:32 / 22.01.08
A piece in USA Today summarizes an APA study on bisexual women. The headline is (and I'm not making this up): Women's bisexuality an 'identity,' not phase.

The researcher, Lisa Diamond, is a University of Utah psychology prof.

Diamond conducted face-to-face interviews around New York state in 1995, when the women (who identified themselves as lesbian, bisexual or unlabeled, but not heterosexual) were ages 18-25. She then spoke with them by phone every two years.

"These findings are therefore more consistent with the model of bisexuality as a stable identity than a transitional stage," the study says.

Diamond suggests that most women "possess the capacity to experience sexual desires for both sexes, under the right circumstances."

There's more at the link, including reactions from other researchers - one of whom complains about the lack of research in this field.
 
 
grant
15:13 / 23.01.08
LiveScience has a more detailed look at Diamond's study:

The results suggest that women's definitions of lesbianism allowed more flexibility in sexual behavior than did their definitions of heterosexuality.

For instance, 15 percent of the women who identified as lesbian in the last round of interviews reported having sexual contact with a man during the prior two years. However, women who settled on a heterosexual label in the last interviews reported having no sexual contact with a woman within the previous two years.

"This provides further support for the notion that female sexuality is relatively fluid and that the distinction between lesbian and bisexual women is not a rigid one," Diamond said.


Interesting focus on definition and self-definition there.

There's also the idea that female bisexuality is basically the same thing as lesbianism - elsewhere in the article, the writer quotes Diamond:

"These findings demonstrate that the distinction between lesbianism and bisexuality is a matter of degree rather than kind," writes University of Utah psychologist Lisa Diamond in the January issue of the journal Developmental Psychology.
 
 
eye landed
02:36 / 27.01.08
(i apologize in advance for any offense caused by insensitive terminology, etc. i dont have a queer or feminist background, im just sayin the thoughts that come to mind, and no doubt some could be worded more tactfully. luckily this is not the head shop, where im supposed to know such things, haha! although having said that, this topic has been done in the headshop, and im curious what scientific angle grant intends to tease out of this thread.)

this study illuminates how reactions and expectations shape peoples identity.

example one, if any sexuality other than heterosexuality is considered 'deviant', then it should be easier for 'deviants' to shift among the various categories of 'deviance' than for someone to enter or exit the 'deviant' category. heterosexual women have a bigger social barrier to a sexual encounter with a woman than lesbians have to a sexual encounter with a man. (notwithstanding particular lesbian microcultures that strongly discourage any male-oriented sexuality, just as heterosexual cultures often discourage homosexuality.) thus, fewer self-labelled heterosexuals changed their label during the study. also, self-labelled lesbians were more likely than self-labelled heterosexuals to have a sexual experience incompatible with their self-label.

example two, if bisexuals feel less accepted by the culture at large, they are more likely to refuse to label themselves or to mislabel themselves. thus, bisexuals and unlabelleds experienced more flux than the two 'absolute' sexual labels. this reciprocally contributes to the prejudice of fluidity of bisexual identity. are bisexuals who are uncomfortable with labelling themselves more likely to mislabel as lesbians or heterosexuals? im a male who has never identified as gay due to my indisputable attraction to women, but im not sure if im bi or straight. are there people out there of either gender who cant decide if theyre gay or bi? and which is more common: a little bit straight or a little bit gay?

im not sure how valid the statistics are, given the small sample size (as qualitative research, we shouldnt be seeing quotes like '15 percent of the women who identified as lesbian in the last round of interviews reported having sexual contact with a man during the prior two years.')

it makes me really uncomfortable to read something like 'female sexuality is relatively fluid and [] the distinction between lesbian and bisexual women is not a rigid one'. if sexuality is so fluid then why not include heterosexuality in the fluid realm? why is it a choice between heterosexuality and some fluid nonsense? is it because we (i.e. the authors of the study and/or the journalists responsible for the linked articles) still think of sexuality in a phallocentric way? male bisexuals are also lumped in with 'queers' (both self-lumping and imposed lumping could no doubt be seen), witness LGBT, presumably to avoid any straight bigots (by choice or by ostracism).
 
  
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